July 18, 2011

A Trip Across Town, Photos from India

The sixth installment of images from my 2 week trip to Bangalore, India. The following were taken Friday, November 12, 2010 (day 6). (My D90 was still set to PST so the EXIF date is a bit behind.)

Since I had yet to visit my company's Bangalore office, Gopi and I decided to take Friday to do just that. It was a whole day trip as the two offices were on either sides of the city. Even though it was a mere 12 miles, I remember the trip taking roughly 1.5-2 hours.

Afterwards, we went to a local mall to see if there were any deals to be had. I'd been told that goods were significantly cheaper than what I was used to in the US. This may true in the right place, but this mall was not one of those places, at least for men's clothing. The other factor was that my sleeve length and waist size were simply not stocked. The last men's store I walked into, the salesman, without a word, immediately measured my sleeve and waist, looked up at me with a regretful smile and slowly did the head bobble. From that point I decided that focusing on shopping for Elizabeth would be more successful.

Since Gopi was roughly Elizabeth's same height, he generously volunteered to hold up potential purchases so I could determine the fit. Not a scene you'd easily find with a couple of straight dudes in America, but, as I'm sure Elizabeth will corroborate, it worked out great. I ended up buying a few nice kurtas and a sari as the prices for women's clothes were definitely cheaper.

So on with the pics, 24 in total and mostly from the road.

I know I keep posting shots of these commercial trucks, but it's details like the top of the passenger window and the sprite where the bed of the truck meets the cab that I find so interesting. I think this one is the last.

After touring the Bangalore office, we passed this fruit vendor while walking to a nearby restaurant. I was fully saturated with Indian food at this point and was hoping the restaurant had something vaguely American (bland). I remember it distinctly because he was at the intersection of an alley and Whitefield road (the main thoroughfare). As I stepped into the alleyway, which was more like a wind tunnel, I was overwhelmed with the stench of raw sewage. It truly almost knocked me on my ass. No one else seemed to notice the smell. The restaurant was directly across the alley and needless to say, nothing on the menu sounded appetizing. On a side note, notice the "Gents" posting? These were all over. They're notices of rooms for let. Even though I knew better, I kept thinking they were something totally different (this ad was a lot more specific than most). Gopi eventually set me straight.

You'll find tender coconuts everywhere. The tops are lopped off and sold with a straw. Nature's juice box.

Whitefield road had lots of vendors. This one supplied the cigarettes. When I got a little closer, I didn't recognized any of the brands. Not only that, the graphic design on the packaging had the feel of the 1950's or 60's. This was a trend I saw often, even major brands were still using early versions of their product's branding.

Gopi posing for a demonstration on "depth of field". This is also where we ended up eating, a little outdoor coffee place within the business park where my company's office was located. I had a plain, microwaved veggie burger with cheese. Meh.

The sun was going down and the light was starting to get golden. We were at this intersection for about 10-15 minutes, so I snapped a few pedestrians. This women stood out as I saw very few women wearing business suits.

You're not going to find one of these old Fila bags in the US these days.

A Gentleman taking a quick snooze. I felt the same way at this point. It didn't help that we'd been sitting at this intersection for so long. In general, I feel time spent at intersections has a similarity with the math used to calculate dog years.

I found this to be an interesting arrangement of shape and color.

As you'll see in the next installment, wild dogs were everywhere.

A vendor pushing her cart the opposite direction of traffic. I saw a similar cart being pushed down the slow lane of a majorly packed highway. It was pretty standard.

A moldy water tower. The thought of climbing up that ladder gives me the tinglies.

Sandbags waiting in line for a piece of the action.

One of the many impromptu food vendors. Gopi pointed out that panipuri was the food being sold.

Not sure I could've shot this picture if it wasn't from a passing car. Their looks of suspicion are exactly what I find hard to ignore when shooting candid pictures of people.

With the sun close to setting, this image of a man adjusting his bike seat is one of my favorites.

Boy texting (I think) while selling tender coconuts. These are much larger and require a machete (top of the pile) to slice open. Nothing about that blade looks sanitary enough to come into contact with food.

Women stringing up what looks to be flower garlands (Gajra). Notice that the man sitting to her right is caked in a pink color. Not sure what's going on there. Gopi has identified that the man is suffering from leukoderma. The color is actually a lack of pigmentation. I've seen similar afflictions, but never as broad as this man's leg.

Whoops. I lied. One more truck. But this one is just because I liked the hand painted branding.

Apparently, steel poles are not the standard when constructing scaffolding. More tinglies...

A hand-painted license plate. I also saw hand-painted declarations on the sides of commercial vehicles such as license to haul in the state of Karnataka in general. I wonder if these are enforced, anyone could paint these on their vehicles as there didn't seem to be any specific, hard-to-reproduce aspect of the application.

The sun's angle highlighting the large amount of pollution. We were almost to the mall and I was getting sleepy.

So was this guy. (Remember, the steering wheel is on the other side of the car)

The sari store. This was a unique experience. The process of buying a sari involves sitting at one of the tables and explaining to the salesperson what your looking for. They then proceed to pull down a bunch to choose from. Those choices are then modeled by one of the female employees. I had no understanding of the difference between a wedding sari and an average everyday sari. They were all simply bright and decorative fabrics to my eye. I ended up with a mustard yellow and maroon sari. It's way too big for Elizabeth but a friend has offered to do the fitting when E's ready to wear it.

June 6, 2011

Some Faces, Photos from India

The fifth installment of images from my 2 week trip to Bangalore, India. The following were taken Wednesday November 10, 2010 (day 4).

Like in the US, drinking Coke makes people pretty! It was interesting to see how advertising trends differed from America. I saw many like this, light-skinned, shinny-happy people with collars usually popped, and often jumping into the frame. The compositions were always busy, packed with text and color. It felt odd as these models really didn't represent the majority of people I saw. I figure it's the same for foreigners in the US. Americans are bombarded with the equivalent, but maybe we've lived with advertising longer and as a result, the models (mostly) seem normal. And ferrr sure, when I look around, Americans definitely don't look the part.

Morning commuters waiting for the next bus to arrive. Traffic is tight and since cars can quickly swoop in and out to jockey for position and from what I was told, the least agile of the vehicles, buses, make up for it by having some sort of legal immunity when it comes to fender-benders. It makes sense as long they don't rogue. I'm sure LA buses would go hog-wild with power like that.

Pedestrian making his way to the bus stop. The reason I found this shot interesting was the security feature on the wall behind him. Look closely and you'll see the broken glass cemented to the top to further deter whatever the barbed wire doesn't.

I passed this place everyday, but I never asked if Srinivas knew what it was. My assumption was a home. In the mornings I would usually see a women, sometimes with a child in sling, going about standard chores. A few times there was a man doing the same. What didn't make sense though, apart from the obvious, was that these homes (there was another just out of the left frame) were isolated on the frontage road of a busy highway. There was nothing else around them. My first thought, from the bottles in the trees, that it was a recycling station. Each day I passed, it looked more and more like a home. Notice the "THIS PROPERTY BELONGS" message on the back wall. Maybe they often get mistaken as squatters. But why is it in English?

Detail of the hand-painted artwork that decorates commercial trucks. They need to be careful, that beach scene is a gateway drug to more expressive variations.

From wikipedia, Balaji is another name for Venkateswara, the sin destroying form of Vishnu. Along with the sharp glass adhered to the sign, these trucks make for an interesting metaphor.

Every time I saw a women riding sidesaddle, the fear I felt during the one (and only) time I rode on the back of a motorcycle came rushing back with a vengeance. I couldn't help imagining what it must have been like (in pants, of course), thus spawning that special little tingle in the nethers that happens when I'm looking down front a really high ledge.

The iridescence of her sari is set off by the drabness and functionality of the motorcycles and cement.

That natural lemon flavor could use a hose-down.

So as not to displease, Balarama waits for the shopkeeper's distraction so he can secretly take care of the sample accepted out politeness.

Friends having breakfast together. My driver, Srinivas, wore the same white outfit, which makes me think this is a group of taxi drivers.

While efficient, these brooms looked like real back-brakers. At least for my back anyway.

This little girl was too cute. I was just sitting in traffic watching her try to use that big broom to get up. It took her a few tries.

Not sure if this was a makeshift bus stop or these guys were waiting on their carpool.

Nitin, thinking he was on the right path, is confused to hear that his "Helping Hands" design is not specific enough to properly evoke the "extreme ambiguity" of the Gilgal Solutions brand.

Padmaraj, one of my colleagues. I didn't get to spend much time with him due to his contracting dengue fever 4 days into my visit. The updates we were given during his stay in the hospital sounded horrific. With a nickname like "breakbone fever", you can easily get a good idea of what he went through.

The team wearing traditional kurtas for "Ethnic Day". I got one as well and wore it the whole day. They're pretty comfortable. From left to right: Vijay, Padmaraj, Senthil S., Renjith, Jeyaraj, Gopi, Dipta, Elayaraja, Senthil V., Pradeep.

On on my way to lunch, I appreciated the elevator's honesty.

My standard lunch for the first week. While cafeteria food in the US is known to be pretty bad, this stuff was really tasty. Only experiencing Indian food in the US, I expected to be blown away when I got to India. The truth is, it tasted pretty much the same. What I didn't expect though, was to be totally overwhelmed after the first week. My weak little taste buds, lazy from all of the bland grilled cheese, egg sandwiches and bean & cheese burritos, were not strong enough to weather, for every meal, the extremely rich Indian spices. So, unfortunately, my second week had to consist of veggie burgers with french fries, Domino's Pizza (which tasted exactly the same) and really bad fettucini alfredo.

May 30, 2011

The Daily Commute, Photos from India

The third installment of images from my 2 week trip to Bangalore, India. The following were taken Monday November 8, 2010 (day 2).

Why has it taken so long for me to post them, you ask? I guess I just needed time to process things. It was a really hectic business trip that required me to work pretty much non-stop. It's taken a while to filter out some of my personal thoughts. Plus, only recently have responsibilities at work started to slow down to where I can act on projects that require some level of creativity. Stay tuned as I have more to come.

This was the scene at both hotels in which I stayed during my trip. No matter what, entry to the lobby required a trip through the ole' metal detector. The guards were always courteous, unlike the average trip to your gate at the any US airport.

A view from my taxi on the way to work. Unfortunately, my first week of pictures were mostly from the back of the taxi. Pictured here, two words I saw often: "Vijay", meaning victory and incorporated, in some form or another, into many of the names of guys I met during my stay, and the brand name "Kingfisher", specializing in everything from beer to airlines.

An "Auto" (short for "Auto Rickshaw"). Some of the guys tried to persuade me into one of these little doozies, but I refused on the grounds that I was often scared shitless just riding in regular taxis. Not sure what advantage the covering on the side was providing.

Another 3-wheeler. Something tells me that lone little wheel up front isn't going to help much in a tight turn, which is often needed to avoid some of the "creative" techniques drivers often use to get through traffic.

"Institute of Animal Health and Veterinary Biologicals". I saw a lot of these types of buildings. Very socialist looking architecture with long, socialist sounding names.

I was amazed that instead of graffiti, many walls hand unblemished murals. I later asked one of my colleagues, Gopinath Prasanna (Gopi) about their significance. He explained that there is a trend followed in India that whenever a new movie is released, posters of the movie are pasted on walls around the city ("any damn wall", as he put it). To avoid this, the BMP (Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, a Bangalore Civic Organization) started collecting money from the film producers, mistakenly assuming it would dissuade them off the practice. Finally, the BMP had the idea of painting the walls instead. The paintings range from the history of Karnataka to the imagination of local artists.

A highway exit sign. I was really drawn to fatter variants of the Kannada script. Especially when hand-painted. (Kannada is the official language of the state of Karnataka, of which, Bangalore is the capital).

The "floating boating" label always made me laugh. It makes for a nice addition to "bouncy house" in the collection of goofy names for fun activities. On the other side of this was was a big public lake that looked closed for the season.

Morning commuters getting some breakfast on their way to work.

Another morning spot for a quick bite on the way to, or from work. Not so appetizing to my eye. From what Gopi told me, these sorts of places are the equivalent of a really rough, greasy-spoon-style diner. Vodafone or Sprite always seemed to be the big advertiser.

Gopi (left) and Tarence Naveen Dsouza, two of my helpful and courteous colleagues. This was at a little café near the office where I tried to get some American-style coffee. No luck though. The predominant coffee I found was very watered down, but with a super harsh taste. Everyone I saw drinking it used a boatload of cream. I drink my coffee black (insert joke from Airplane here), which meant I stuck with tea for most of the trip.

My attempts to use my camera's flash weren't all that great. With this one, I think I was trying to capture the big trough on the side of the road, a storm gutter that would have swallowed any motorcyclist who wasn't careful.

Every evening on the way back to the hotel was a big, 6 or 7 street intersection. The only traffic control was a dude holding a piece of rope across the street as a barrier. We usually sat here for around 15 minutes. After about the first minute or two, everyone would simply turn off their lights and engines.

Once we were past the big intersection, the race was on! The intersection was under major construction for something called a "flyover".

After wondering what the hell a "flyover" was, a quick search online defined it as an "overpass". Pretty obvious, but I kept telling myself it had something to do with airplanes as the word "fly" kept jamming my logic.

May 30, 2011

More Commuting, Photos from India

The fourth installment of images from my 2 week trip to Bangalore, India. The following were taken Tuesday November 9, 2010 (day 3).

Like I wrote in the last post, the majority of my first week of pictures were from the back of the taxi. Most of my coworkers used them as their standard transportation to and from work. No reason to drive yourself if one of the perks of employment was a paid taxi service.

Except for the first day, I had the same driver, Srinivas, for the whole the trip. He picked me up at 9am and dropped me at 10:30pm, everyday. Even though his English was pretty much non-existent (like my Kannada), we got pretty good at communicating. We both seemed to enjoy the challenge of trying to find simplistic words or symbols that were loaded enough to stand-in for elemental concepts we both, regardless of culture, understood. He was a really great source for insight into some of the things I was seeing from the backseat.

He wanted to make sure that before the end my trip I got a picture of him. When the time came, it was 4am and we were at the airport. I was stressed from functioning on 1 hour of sleep and didn't have the energy to dig out my camera and snap one off. I'm sorry I didn't.

My first hotel looked nice at first, but as you see from the mess out front, it wasn't optimal. It was the little things that bugged me, jackhammers at 6:30am, temperature control that didn't get above 58° fahrenheit, and rooms that knocked you down with the smell of mildew (I tried three different rooms). Look closely, my room is the one with the shades fully open. An insomniatic eye with a front row seat to the action.

Another interestingly long name, "National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects". Muted yellows were the popular color for government buildings. In LA, it's gray cement. [Update] Gopi emailed that the yellow is in reference to the the holy colors of yellow and red, respectively meaning peace and courage

Twin homes that got the twin treatment (with surgical accuracy, no less) when, what looks to be, a road widening was needed. They probably didn't need that pesky extra room anyway.

All commercial trucks were ornately painted. I would have loved to get more up-close shots of the work. From what I was told, they were only allowed on the road at night, if hauling, due to congestion and pollution. Trucks were usually lined up along the side of the road during the day. Another feature every truck displayed, the "Sound Horn" directive. As if Indian drivers need to be told to honk a horn. You'd think they were getting horn-honking royalties they way they laid on it. Srinivas was amazed that it was the opposite, and even seen as rude, in America. My little brain was fried from all the horns when I arrived to work every morning. Some even had a sped up UK-style police siren, de-da-le-da-le-da-leeeeeeeeeeee!

Construction on the flyover created heavy traffic where people, and cars, were put in precarious situations. At one point we came within inches of knocking a motorcyclist off the road while going 30-40 mph. I squelched loudly, only to have Srinivas laugh and tell me that "3 centimeters" was considered close. And he was right, the motorcyclist just looked at us nonchalantly as if he didn't even notice his near-death.

Notice the rebar at the back-left corner of the building. Many on the buildings we passed were started, but never finished.

Morning drive-by of a quickie stand. Always bananas-a-plenty.

Waiting to have our car checked for bombs on the way into the business park. They'd stare at us for a bit, roll a big mirror under the front and back of the car, and open the trunk. Same thing at night when entering the hotel driveway.

View from the cafeteria balcony. There was construction everywhere, except for this lot.

May 28, 2011

Command Line Aliases

I've been trying to hone my command line skills as it's sometimes the only way to do complex operations (searching remote svn log files). One of the actions I find most repeated is finding my way into the various directories to perform these operations. My typing skills are less than stellar, so it kind sucks to type (even with tab completion):

cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs

In looking for a better way to navigate to my repo, I created an alias. This means that instead of typing:

cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs

I can simply type:

repo

That variable will be "expanded" into the string cd /Applications/MAMP/htdocs and executed by the shell.

Here's how make this black magic a reality:

OSX (UNIX) ----- Open Finder and click on your home folder. Show the hidden files using the keystroke shift + command + . (or use a dashboard widget) Open the hidden file named ".profile" (or create one with Textedit if it doesn't exist) Add the following text (I use MAMP as my server, which is located at /Applications/MAMP/):

alias repo='/Applications/MAMP/htdocs'

Save the file. Open a new Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) Type:

repo

You should now be in the /htdocs directory (or whatever path you set for repo)

Windows

Open Notepad and create a new text file. Add the following text (I use WAMP as my server, which is located at C:\wamp):

cd C:\\wamp\\www

Save the file as “repo.bat” in C:\WINDOWS\system32. Open a Command Prompt at Start->All Programs->Accessories->Command Prompt (or using the Start Menu shortcut r and CMD) Type:

repo

You should now be in the \www directory (or whatever path you set for repo)

OSX (UNIX) reference

Windows reference

May 15, 2011

Replaced!

Yes, I have now replaced both of my manual cameras. This was a shitty first-half of a year in regards to my cameras. First, I forced the winder on my Hasselblad and broke the mirror arm. Then, a few weeks ago, my Nikon F3 fell off the dining room table and the winder mechanism refused to advance. I also fell with it in my padded shoulder bag while skating across a street. Seriously, what's with the winders?!

I understand the Hasselblad, but the Nikon is a tank. I originally bought it from friend and skateboard photographer Nick Accurso in the late 1990's. That thing took a beating with him. But with me, if it falls off a table onto a wooden floor/onto a street in a padded bag and it's done? The advance gear is probably just jammed, but the cost to fix it was the same as the used replacement, and the replacement is in waaay better condition.

So, here they are, in a really corny shot on my dining room table.

Original Nikon is from 1982, the "new" one, 1984. Original Hasselblad, 1960, the "new" one, 1991.

Also, this was my first time successfully haggling on the price. I usually just accept what they're asking, I hate talking money.

I still India posts in the queue. Yeah, it's been that way for a loooong time, I know. But, good things take time.

Some useful manuals: Nikon F3 and Hasselblad 503cx.

February 3, 2011

Toggle Class - The jQuery Way vs. The Native Way

I work with a team of developers located in the US, Canada and Bangalore. On behalf of the North American team, I send daily status emails detailing what each dev worked on, as well as their svn commit log, so the offshore devs and project leadership can stay synced.

For the past 2 or 3 weeks I've been including little quick tips on CSS and javascript. The team I'm on is composed of people with a variable level of skills and this is an attempt to affect those levels.

I thought I'd start posting some of these to archive ones I would have found helpful when I first started programming.

We use jQuery in our project and the majority of the devs (including myself) learned javascript via jQuery. Below is what it takes to toggle a class using jQuery vs. native javascript. As you can see, we've had it easy.

The jQuery Way

$('.some-class').toggleClass('newClass');

The Native Way (I'm sure there are better ways):

var i = 0,
    elements = document.getElementsByClassName('some-class'),
    len = elements.length,
    classToggle = function( element, tclass ) {

        var classes = elements\[i\].className,
            pattern = new RegExp( tclass );
            hasClass = pattern.test( classes );

        classes = hasClass ? classes.replace( pattern, '' ) : classes + ' ' + tclass;
        elements\[i\].className = classes.trim();
    };

for ( ; i < len; i++ ) {
    classToggle( elements\[i\], 'newClass' );
}

The native example could be wrapped up a bit tighter to make it easily reusable. One of the reasons the jQuery example is so concise is that it relies on it's own methods for making collections and performing loops. The $ and toggleClass functions have quite a bit of code backing them up. If I were to add in all of the source code jQuery uses to preform these tasks, things would look a lot different.

But that's not the point. The thing that has enabled me to use jQuery as just one of the tools in my toolbox, instead of the only tool, is understanding the underlying functionality.

A couple of good references: the jQuery source (of course) and the MDC.